You’ve chosen the clothes: a jacket that works with the knit, shoes that make several outfits useful. Now you need a lookbook your client can shop and understand.
For each item, you save an image, remove the background, resize it, place it on a page, and add the right retailer, price, and link. When you do the whole sequence one item at a time, you have to keep switching between image work, layout, and product details.
Make one item list first. Prepare and check the images together, place them in the lookbook, then review the outfits as outfits.
List every item before building the pages
Put every chosen item into one working list. Each row needs a stable name and its source URL. Add the designer or retailer, current price, size or color detail, and the outfit or section it belongs to.
If a selected piece becomes unavailable, add its replacement to the list. You can see what changed before editing a finished page. Otherwise sourcing keeps interrupting layout work, and the first complete version takes longer than it should.
Mark each item as selected, image ready, details checked, placed, or replaced. The list should show which items still need work.
Clean up the images together
In an interview, a stylist described processing thousands of item photographs for a celebrity archive. Removing backgrounds, saving and uploading files, resizing them, and recording their sources took about a week, even with help. Your client lookbook may be smaller, but you still have to prepare each image and keep track of where it came from.
Start by downloading or importing all selected images. Keep the source URL attached to each file. Remove backgrounds where the document requires it, then export every image to the same format and a useful size.
Check the batch before opening the layout:
- every selected item has one usable image;
- file names map cleanly to the working list;
- no crop removes an important hem, heel, handle, or neckline;
- color edits remain true to the intended product;
- source links still open to the correct item.
A missing image is easy to find in the item list. It is harder to notice once the outfit pages look finished.
Finish the asset batch before polishing the first page.
Place every outfit before polishing a page
Set the rules that repeat across the document: page size, image scale, margins, type, source-detail order, and the space allowed for notes. Then place the whole batch.
Check the first layout for missing outfits and inconsistent scale. If a shoe appears twice as large as the coat beside it, the client will have to work harder to imagine the combination. Put the same product details in the same place on each page.
If you use the same black trousers in several outfits, keep one checked product record. You can then correct a changed price or link everywhere it appears.
Check product facts, then check the outfits
First, verify the production facts. Open each link. Match the image, designer, retailer, price, variant, and availability note to the source. Count the selected rows and the placed items. Resolve any mismatch.
Then review the styling. Look at balance, repetition, outfit logic, and the order in which the client encounters the choices. Move an item because the outfit reads better, rather than because its file was the next one in the folder.
During the outfit review, you can decide whether a look needs another shoe without stopping to hunt for a missing product page.
Leave room for the client’s actual wardrobe
You still decide whether a close-fitting top suits your client, whether a color works with the clothes already in her wardrobe, and whether an old jacket deserves another season.
Those decisions need your client’s preferences and your judgment. Image cleanup cannot make them.
The companion guide on why styling clients need a digital wardrobe and a lookbook covers what happens after delivery. Here, finish by checking the images and product details against your full item list.
Open the item list beside the lookbook. Every chosen piece should appear on a page, have a working source link, and belong to an outfit you would recommend.
